Structured Data Past At Google
Ryan Levering explained in a summary that he started his structured data project by working on the legacy data highlighter tool within Search Console. Google tried to get away from the requirement to highlight or markup content early on. Instead, they wanted to use machine learning to solve all of it. This was something Gary Illyes said in 2017 spokesperson retracted this later. Google put a lot of effort into machine learning to figure it all out.
Structured Data Present At Google
Ryan explained that it became easier to ask people for their data than pull it from the internet. He said, "It's surprisingly more accurate." They later invested more resources to build out structured data and supporting documents so site owners can easily hand over the data to Google.
However, machine learning has been thrown out of the window. Ryan stated that they still use it for
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Sites that don't use structured data, but Google still wants rich results for them.
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For abuse or mistakes, so Google can verify the content of the page compared with the structured information.
Ryan stated that it's a multi-pronged approach to structuring data and machine learning to understand it all. Google has recently updated the structured data error reporting to add more descriptive names and context. This is how Google uses it today, but what about the future?
Structured Data Future At Google
Ryan stated that structured data will be used in the "medium-term future" and said they intend to use it "not only for visual treatments but also to help with understanding on the page."
Google has already mentioned that structured data can help Google understand a page, but it is not a ranking factor. Google is likely to continue working on this. Ryan stated that Google is looking at "how to use structured information more universally in many of our features, rather than just being scattered about."
Google stated that Google can use structured information if it is "interpreted in general to our internal graph."
Ryan said he,
“Would like to adjust more data via structured data-specific channels than relying on the web to convey all of our information.
It’s basically about finding a cleaner method to transfer data between data providers and Google.”
He suggested that Google work with large CMS platforms to integrate it directly into their platforms.
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